


The Final Word (REVISED)

by ActualHurry



Series: Letters from a Renegade: Epilogue [5]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Lore Compliant, M/M, Pining, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:59:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActualHurry/pseuds/ActualHurry
Summary: Shin makes a decision.(Set after "V: Echoes Followed by Silence".)---Revised version, compliant with Joker's Wild lore. Original version is still available in series.





	The Final Word (REVISED)

**Author's Note:**

> This series contains many references to my previous series, "A Drifter's Gambit: Unabridged"...which has also been revised (very lightly)! I'm super tired of trying to pivot to accommodate new lore, so let's REALLY hope that we can keep moving this forward now, because I have a vision to paint.

Shin didn’t start chasing the Drifter because he expected something worthwhile. Hunters were all opportunists, and Shin’s endeavors, by nature, demanded opportunity. Gambit was a good cause to support in the wake of the Red War. Guardians needed it. Shin stood by that.

Things had evolved from there.

He hadn’t intended to go so far, but when had he ever? All these grand machinations and irons in a hundred separate fires, and Shin had misplaced himself among it all. He’d lost his hands to warm skin, lost his breath to gasps. He’d lost the thrill of the hunt to the thrill of someone’s body against his own.

Not just _someone,_ never just _someone_ –

Shin had known the Drifter by another name first. It wasn’t rare to find Dark Age folk changing out names every century or so. Risen weren’t afforded easy deaths as an end; they had to make their own. And Shin was damn sure that Drifter would’ve wanted to rid himself of that name, quick as he could.

Not that it mattered. It never mattered how many names were swapped out and how much history shifted. Identity never changed. The self always remained. The core of anyone’s being _stayed_. Shin knew that.

Shin knew that better than anyone, even better than Drifter.

 

_Then._

The first time Shin met him, it started with a game.

The table between them was lush with cards, some face-up, some hidden. The cards themselves had been long-forgotten in favor with another gamble. Chips meant little now. Early on, they’d been playing for the win. Now, it was a matter of prolonging the stakes, adjusting their chances, waiting for an opening.

“You can still lay down your hand and leave,” Shin said. “You’re better off that way.”

“Lose the battle, win the war?” Before-Drifter asked, smiling. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Not _now_ , not in this deep. Took a lot to get an audience with you, y’know. I’m not gonna throw it away.”

“It pays to be difficult to find,” Shin said, polite. “If you’re not giving up…who are you?”

Before-Drifter shrugged. “I’m just a wanderer.”

Shin bit his tongue. “No name?”

“No name worth the trouble of remembering. You change ‘em out anyway, don’t you?”

Shin watched him fold his hands in front of him and settle them into his lap, out of view. _You’re trying too hard,_ he thought, amused. “You want to take on your third life, then? Proceed anew?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Hm.” Shin crossed his legs at the knee. The black bandana over his face hid the tiniest tilt of his mouth. “And you’re ready for the weight of your own existence?”

Before-Drifter almost sounded mocking as he asked, “Is anyone?”

“Clever.”

Shin was obviously unimpressed enough that Before-Drifter decided he needed to kick it up a notch. If Shin blinked, he would’ve missed the shift – just like that, Before-Drifter sobered up and looked him in the eye. This was more what Shin was used to dealing with. The company that he kept wasn’t often the lighthearted kind, derisive or not. He’d liked the little break from business, admittedly.

“I think there’s something else, is all,” Before-Drifter pressed, serious. “Light’s next to nothing. Can’t be enough all on its lonesome.”

Shin leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Many have thought the same and found their end instead. What makes you different?”

“You lookin’ for honesty?”

“Lies might kill you.”

Before-Drifter faltered for only a second, not expecting Shin’s flat reply. “Okay,” he said, slowly. “Hand to my heart, guess I just like my odds.”

In their ensuing standoff, Shin studied the man with no name, allowing himself the indulgence. His eyes were blue, light in color, lightless otherwise. Tired shadows cut lines beneath them, his expression otherwise shrewd. There was no feverish desire in his face, no desperation to follow after the worst of the night. Not that Shin could see.

If he did end up swallowed by the hated path, Shin would handle it.

Feeling out Shin’s scrutiny, Before-Drifter smiled another small, secret smile.

“You’re willing to be unmade?” Shin asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

“If that’s what I gotta do.” Before-Drifter tucked his hands into his robes and slouched into the back of his seat. “I’m interested.”

“You’ll suffer for your curiosity.”

“Ha.” When the man grinned, it was all teeth. “That’s nothin’ new.”

“Others will suffer for you.”

“Well…” The grin disappeared, his voice softer as he said, “That’s nothing new either.”

After another thoughtful moment, Shin swept all the cards into a pile, collected them into a neat deck, and shuffled them. “For keeps this time,” he said.

Before-Drifter didn’t fold. That boded well for him, at least. Shin felt the man’s eyes on him as he distributed the cards.

“So what do I call _you_?” Before-Drifter asked. “Still go by Orsa, like all the folk at the Tower say?”  

Shin didn’t even look up. “Vale, now and ever.”

“Vale,” Before-Drifter repeated, testing the name. “Alright. Alright, Vale. For keeps.”

The next day, Shin accompanied him to Yor’s ship, the husk of bones looming, the stench of death and dust overwhelming. The whispers spoke, screamed, shuddered. Shin turned his gaze away as Before-Drifter sank to his knees, his hands around his ears, his gasps soundless through the noise of Shin’s own whispers.

This was not the end. This was but a catalyst to start him on the long road ahead.

Rubbing the side of his head to distract himself from the rending shrieks in his mind, Shin reminded himself that he’d warned him.

The whispers slowly gave way to a ringing silence, broken up by Before-Drifter’s deep, heaving breaths. Shin knelt next to him. The Hive bones rattled like reedy laughter.

“Your knife?” Shin prompted.

Before-Drifter opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again. A shadow crossed his features.

Shin leaned closer. “Rejoice in the end of ignorance,” he said, quiet, nearly drowned out by the rest of the silence. “Speak it.”

The hourglass ticked down. Shin waited for him to wrestle past his tangled tongue.

He had to lean in to hear when Before-Drifter finally spoke up –

“...Hope. Heard – heard a lot about hope.”

– and his heart tripped over itself.

Shin cleaned the blood from Hope’s ears and wiped the drippings away from his neck, leaving red smears behind in a silent claim: _I’ve been here._

 

_Now._

Shin had never forgotten the man named Hope.

He’d left that last piece of writing with Drifter as an attempt at goodbye from the Renegade. It would be easy, now that Drifter knew the truth, not to get wrapped around him again. It took two to tango. If only one of them wanted...well, that was safe enough. Shin couldn’t succumb to walking the edge of the knife if Drifter wouldn’t let him.

But Shin wanted him _bad_. Reminders existed everywhere. It was one thing to pine away when Hope had only ever been a wish who’d slipped through his fingers, a potential never realized. But now he knew his touch, his tongue, his teeth. Now he woke up in the middle of the night from dreams that left him too hot under his clothes. Now he looked at interesting items, unknown tech, strange oddities, and wondered if someone he knew would want them.

He took to distracting himself. The Shadows were still splintered. The last time he’d played Vale had been to convince Bane and Cull of his plan. It had worked out, entirely foolproof. The Man with the Golden Gun had set Cull and his radical words ablaze. Snare traps were always the simplest; it meant that Shin couldn’t rely on the Shadows to keep his attention though, not with all of them staying hidden and out of reach.

He watched Gambit instead. The Hero of the Red War was an interesting subject. Another time, another situation...maybe he would’ve approached them personally. That touch of gray was one to admire. That was the trick, that was the _key_.

Shin kept his distance from both the Guardian and the Drifter. He watched as Drifter stayed close to them, trusted them with that artifact, that malevolent piece in an ancient game of chess. Shin _wanted_ , but he was patient. He followed after that brilliant spark of Light here, there, anywhere Drifter sent them. If there was trepidation in their heart, it wasn’t known by their footsteps.

He saw some of himself there within the Guardian’s actions, their motivations, their forever fight against their selfish anger, their burning hurt, their unchanging scar, all to strive towards being a hero.

The beauty was not in their striving, but their _succeeding_. Jealousy tried to eat at Shin, but that admiration won out.

With every passing day, Shin got a better and better idea of what must come next.

No matter how loosely he held it, the Last Word was heavy in his grip. Jaren’s concept of him hadn’t ever quite come to fruition. The endgame had changed. He’d always be able to call to it if he ever truly needed it – but this was the chance of another worthy wielder, another legacy.

For the first time in a long, long time…Shin dared to hope.

Shin knew where the Guardian was headed even before they did. If he’d been kinder, maybe he would have tipped them off to Enkaar’s location, but he wanted to let Drifter have his little victories.

He beat the Guardian to the Tangled Shore by a longshot, tracked trailing Darkness through the labyrinthine caverns until he came to kneel on an overlook way, way above the floor of Enkaar’s lair.

From his perch, Shin watched the Acolyte piece together a sad mimicry of a Thorn. Shin knew what Thorn felt like – a nightmare, a ghost, a crushing pressure – and Enkaar was still a ways off. Close, but not there yet. Shin had half a mind to shoot him on the spot. End his cycle of sinister resurrections – or at least reduce him to Thrall once more.

He couldn’t take that shot, though. He had to set the battle for his runner-up. He had to play Jaren’s role in the best way he knew how. It wasn’t Jaren’s story. It wasn’t the ballad of old anymore. It was his legacy to leave, for better or worse.

Enkaar disappeared deeper into the cavern. Shin waited. He looked down at his gun. The Last Word should’ve looked battered by its work and age, but even in this darkness, he could see the gold trim of it shining, enticing, reflecting the small amount of light available to it. _Tex Mechanica_ , engraved on the barrel along with that pattern that’d grown so familiar to him. He’d spent sleepless nights running his bare thumb along the etching, committing it to memory, tireless days trailing prey that knew he was coming, content with the weight of the gun on his hip.

His Ghost appeared next to him, exacting quiet judgment on his choice, as it always had.

Shin transmatted his helmet off and away. It felt like parting with an old friend. Maybe it was the final nail in the coffin.

He pressed his lips to the side of the barrel.

“End of the line,” he murmured against the warm metal, though the gun hadn’t fired yet today. “Ever yours.”

Shin walked the long way back up and out. The Guardian would arrive soon enough, and he didn’t want to be here for that show. Jaren was lucky to have found someone to take his place. Shin was even luckier, considering the number of conversations he’d come outta still breathing…considering the things he’d done, the masks he’d worn.

Two legends, one having taken the other’s place, a third on the cusp of greatness. Shin didn’t need to die to pass the baton.

He’d spent a long time surviving. With a thrill deep in his stomach, temptation settled in.

Maybe it was time to live a little.

 

_You are Shin Malphur. The Man with the Golden Gun. The thrice-over orphan from Palamon. Dredgen Yor’s apocalypse, tragic hero, and tireless Renegade. A righteous hunter, chasing Shadows with a cleansing fire in your fist. The tales of your deeds sprout wings and grow larger than life._

_This is not your entire story._

_You are Zyre Orsa. You are a Guardian, an acquaintance of one Teben Grey. You sympathize with his boundless curiosity – you have information he wants – you will provide it, so long as he helps you seek answers._

_Not yet. Again._

_You are Dredgen Vale. You have been enlightened. Your anger has tempered you. Your vengeance has honed all you are. You see the depth of Darkness, the corruption it might hold. Might. It is never a surety. You know this, too. You know the rules; you recognize the need._

_Across a very thin line, you lay your trap, and you punish those that step into it. To take up the knife is to fall. You and yours prefer another method._

_Again and again, you have lost those you hold dear. Each time, you’ve missed the opportunity for parting words._

_You've never had the chance to say goodbye before they were gone._

_There is a knife for you. It is shaped like [farewell]. Pick it up. It is yours, until the last flame dies and all words have been spoken._

_You don’t take up the knife. You let it fester._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. :)


End file.
